Whither Academic Freedom?

In The Republic, Plato struggled with the question of what relationship the State should have with academia, and settled on the concept of philosopher kings. It is right, thought Plato, that there are some who focus on seeking the truth in all matters. To these should be ordained the right to rule. What could be better than to make the most knowledgeable also the most powerful?

It is impossible to tell whether Plato desired to elucidate a plausible vision of how society should be run or whether he was merely attempting a mental experiment. Nevertheless, the questions he raised are timeless, and confront us in a most pressing manner today.

Professor Kenneth Howell of the University of Illinois was recently at the centre of controversy following an email he sent to students entitled ‘Utilitarianism and Sexuality’, in which he clarified his answers to questions about Catholic teaching on homosexuality. Closer to home, the appointment of Professor Roger Scruton to St. Andrews University in a visiting capacity has caused a stir amongst those who feel his views on homosexuality could create an ‘uncomfortable’ atmosphere.

But how comfortable should a university campus be? And who should determine the level of comfort: the State, or academics themselves?

The civil rights movement in the US was forged outside the law which prevailed at the time and it is from there that it claimed the moral high-ground. It prevailed because it captured hearts and minds. This is the fabric of true human rights: though they may be controversial to some, their worth is proved both within the law, and when the law fails. Yet, contemporary moral discourse on homosexuality affirms the need to accept homosexual rights without discussion, and without a test of principled coherence outside of the law.

Assertions of homosexual rights need to prove themselves against the rigour of academic counter-argument rather than seeking to gain acceptance by censuring those who disagree. Failure to allow this, under the spurious contention that it is ‘homophobic’, would tend to confirm the view that many claims for specific homosexual rights are more a part of contemporary fashion than genuine human rights.

Our society holds to a line very different from that of Plato’s philosopher kings. Whilst Plato envisaged truth and power hand-in-hand, contemporary academia has become the poor man’s hobby horse. The ‘real’ battle for ideas takes place amongst the superficial merry-go-round of sound-bites. The first victim of this battle has been the trivialisation of human rights.

Better than administrative attempts to fire controversial academics are the words of one student of St. Andrews: ‘We look forward to challenging him in debate when he arrives on campus’.

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Did you bother to read Prof. Howell’s e-mail? It’s a breach of decorum on the most generous reading, and a fireable offense after a well-considered reading. Incidentally, it’s also childishly simplistic and uninformed–the last paragraph is shot through with irony.

He comes across as a less than intelligent individual who is sermonizing to his students — not instructing them. Where is the “rigor of academic counterargument”?

He claims to be writing his students (just days before their final) because while he included a question about utilitarianism on the exam, he never explicitly named it in class (….?). He then offers a perfunctory definition, and digresses into lengthy persuasion. Isn’t it obvious that his explicit motives were merely pretense for hypergraphia and polemics? Why is he trying to persuade his students into one moral point of view instead of another when his job is simply to put arguments into play?

I’m all for folks talking through their biases, but this isn’t a case where some academic rabble-rouser got shot down by the Thought Police. His style of rousing a good rabble was to police thoughts, and that’s unacceptable.

If I received a note like that I would wonder: do they give just anyone a doctorate?

K. Lackey, thank you very much for visiting the blog and for leaving a comment.

I think it is good to remember here that Professor Howell was not teaching a class in Moral Philosophy or Ethics, but one entitled ‘Introduction to Catholicism’. The Catholic Church has definite views on the morality of homosexual behaviour, and it is correct that these views should be taught in a class on Catholicism. Leaving aside arguments about freedom of religion, it is a disservice to the students who signed up to the class to learn about specifically about Catholicism (not about a range of religious and philosophical views) to airbursh over certain issues simply because they might potentially offend someone. The students in question were, I assume, entirely free as to whether they signed up to the class or not, and entirely free to accept or reject the teachings of the Catholic Church.

However, even if Professor Howell had been teaching a class in Moral Philosophy, I am not convinced that it is necessarily desirable for a Professor to ‘simply put arguments into play’ and leave the rest to his students. This is not to say that a full range of views should not be presented to students in higher education. They should. But your comments suggest some very definite assumptions about the role of a Professor in higher education which are not accepted by everyone. One might argue that the role of a good Professor is something more than simply teaching students that ‘Dr. A says Z but on the other hand Dr. B says Y’, and then leaving them to figure the rest out for themselves. Intelligent students can learn that kind of information from a book. Rather, one might say that the role of a Professor is to act as a reliable and experienced guide through a particular field of learning which he himself has absorbed thoroughly, and that it is not at all inappropriate, therefore, for him to offer his own views, provided this is not done in such a way as to stifle all academic initiative on the part of the student.

I do hold some definite assumptions about the role of *public* educators, and I am comfortable if they are not shared by everyone — but my views are noncontroversial, grounded in respect for pedagogy, and respect the establishment clause. It was not a careful e-mail, and as he himself notes he was only sending it because he had not been careful in class (which, again, I interpret as a false pretense).

That it was a course on Catholicism is immaterial. I took such a course, as I’m sure no small number of people have — whether it be an intro to Christianity, or Hinduism, Protestant traditions, et al. You’re right that there’s no need to pass over thorny issues in a classroom setting focussed on a given religion, and also correct that in a class about Catholicism, one should assume the church’s views will be taught.

Prof. Howell did not do a very good job explaining utilitarianism, and instead focussed on trying to convince his students to accept a particular moral belief. This is more or less the opposite of education. You suggest that it’s acceptable to share one’s views if one is in the position of a guide, and I agree. But this must then be done carefully, and as you said: in a way that doesn’t shut down academic initiative. Maybe this is where we have to part ways in our disagreement, because as I read his letter he is not qualified to speak on such a complicated issue. His argument belies his capacity for speculation — or else he’s a perfectly bright fellow for all I know, but abused abused his role as guide with an overly informal and ill-put conflation of class material with The Truth. He relies on fallacious inferences and a poor understanding of biology. More simply I just think the nature of the note was inappropriate.

A proper guide would have said, “I believe such and so in regards to the eggs vs. ham debate. Here’s what I offer in support, and here is where I am challenged by those who disagree.” And it would be a dangerous thing to go this way, I think (with many pedagogical alternatives), and I would think it very important that you properly represent those who disagree with you…

I appreciate that, as you say, your views are grounded in respect for pedagogy, but imagine if the matter in question were something less controversial than homosexuality. Would you hold the same view? For example, if a Professor had tried to convince his students that murder violated the natural moral law, would this be ‘inappropriate’?

If a Professor must refrain from trying to convince students of his own moral opinions, then surely this prohibition must apply to all such opinions. Yet, if a Professor could not try and convince students to accept a moral view on any subject whatsoever, then it would make the teaching of many subjects, not just ethics, extremely difficult indeed.

I think it is fair to say that many of those who profess to be offended by Prof. Howell’s comments are offended because the subject under discussion – homosexuality – is currently so controversial. Yet it is precisely because the subject is so controversial that it is so important that it is able to discussed by academics without the constant threat of being demonised as ‘homophobic’.

Since both you and I, presumably, only know about Professor Howell what we have read in the media, I do not think it would be quite fair to cast aspersions on his qualifications to speak on certain issues, or whether or not certain statements were appropriate, given that we are not aware of the wider context surrounding the email. Lets remember, the complaint against Prof. Howell was made not by any of his own students, but by someone who had been forwarded the email by someone else. On the contrary, one of the students quoted in the article linked to says that Professor Howell ‘handled [the subject] with great . . . sensitivity and care . . . letting us know that there are other . . . viewpoints’ on the issue. This seems to be a case of someone taking gratuitous offence at something which did not concern them.

Importantly, the controversy seems to have erupted, in the first place, not because he was accused of pushing his personal opinions onto his students, but because those opinions were considered to be ‘hate speech’ and ‘[violated] university standards of inclusivity’. That is why the fundamental issue here seems to be academic freedom.